Day 3, week 2 recap

Hi everyone!

Megan here!

First off, I just want to thank you for your prayers for the sick team members. After a morning of rest for those who needed it, and a solid afternoon of more rest and quiet time, we were all able to take part in the team meeting this afternoon. As I write, everyone is working on VBS prep for tomorrow, so that is a huge praise item there!! However, please continue to pray for health for the team — both spiritually and physically, as we are presenting the gospel message tomorrow. The evil one does not want us to be at full force tomorrow, and we are getting more tired everyday as this VBS and the missions trip comes to a close in only three full days away.

Today was a very good day at VBS. Students seamlessly stepped into places where their friends were absent, and as a leader, I was so proud of everyone who did.

Since that was basically what our day consisted of, I'd like to give you a quick run through (and tour) of the main format of our days. Wake up is at a 7 am, so we have enough time to dig through our suitcases to find our VBS t-shirts, a skirt or caprees for girls, and pants for the guys. We also need to enough to time to go downstairs to the bathrooms to brush our teeth, wash our faces or shower. Breakfast closes at 7:45, and we usually meet as a team inside the church to pray in between 8:30 and 8:50.

This church is beautiful.

Around 9 a.m., kids begin to trickle in, where we then organize a few games of pato, pato ganzo or futbol. The beginning songs and skits begin at 9:30 a.m., and the first station ends at 10:30 a.m., where the kids have lunch. (Yes, lunch at 10:30 a.m. ... the team has granola bars.)

The courtyard where we welcome kids and play games with them.

After that, we have two more half-hour stations where the kids rotate between games, crafts and drama.

Crafts in the courtyard by the side of the church!

The day of VBS usually ends around 12:30 p.m. Anywhere between then and 2 p.m., we have lunch, which is always prepared by the locals.

An example of a classic Mexican meal — hand cut bacon/meat, green chile morron (not spicy), queso (cheese), rice and a choice of guacamole and/or HOT red sauce. (AMAZING!!)

After lunch, there are three people who wash the dishes (we take turns with this job), which involve taking the dishes in a large Tupperware container to the sink downstairs and outside to wash, rinse and dry. 

Before supper (which takes place anywhere between 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m.), we have a team meeting, quiet time and free time. These can go in any order, depending on the day. For example, immediately after lunch today, we crashed until almost 5 p.m. to give people a chance to rest. Other days, we'll have a team meeting right after lunch, with free time and solo time after we're finished. Team meetings include prayers, debrief from the day, and planning and prepping for the following day. This week has had significantly less planning than last week, because it is the second time we have done this VBS. For solo time, we can either sleep, pray, journal or read our Bibles. Sometimes siestas (sleep/rest) is mandatory. ;) Free time is spent doing whatever we want, including playing futbol in the courtyard, reading, playing dutch blitz, laying out in the sun, or going to the corner store. The corner store is very close to the church, and there is pop, ice cream, crackers, cookies, chips, fruit, yogurt and anything you can imagine, for extremely cheap. For example, a 600mL bottle of pop is 8 pesos, which is less than 75 cents Canadian!

Playing futbol! Or, hit Oscar with the soccer ball.

After supper (which is made by our amazing food lady Clara, and usually consists of sandwiches or pasta — yesterday we ordered in pizza!!!!! [extra exclamation marks brought to you by a very excited Sam]), we have a combination of dish washing, free time and a team meeting before bed. The team meeting in the evening always has worship and prayer, and we've done a bunch of different things during that time as well. We have written out encouragement notes to each other, talked about how God is working in our lives, or listened to Dave, Terry or Kyle give us a talk to either challenge us, encourage us or give us insight and wisdom.

I have come to love the "schedule" of our time here. There are times to talk with our accountability partners, laugh with the locals and each other, or just spend some time by ourselves. 

I will include a mass post tomorrow with more people's answers to my question about their experience in Mexico!

Until then, hasta luego!